Ephil/Christopher (disambiguation)
Ephil/Christopher Overview Ephil is the son of Olivia and Nicholas Wouters, and the grandson of Johannes Abraham Onisim (Jan). ODYGYA Ephil's the protagonist of the first book, presenting himself as a lonesome, dreamy and troubled teenager boy, who copes with his misery through the help of an imaginary feminine figure whom he associates with a girl that was kind to him when he was younger. Because he doesn't remember her name, the feminine figure is called Samantha (derived from a Hebrew name, meaning "God has heard"). After he's introduced to Karina, he undergoes a vicious self-analysis of his life. In the first scene of the book, Ephil finds himself next to Karina - an orphan girl rescued by Jan -, and "the echo of a car horn", accompanied by the sight of a coffee mug, form the reported trigger of the analysis, perhaps because this frame reminded Ephil of Mr. Thomas's death - event which he suppressed as a child. Thus, the first thing he remembers is a letter that Thomas allegedly wrote to him. Throughout the first half of the book, he remembers some of what happened to him as a child: his mother trying to comfort him, although not being there for the most part; his father missing almost completely from his life, leaving behind a great deal of mystery; his grandfather Aleksander, who lived with him in Gouvy, although not engaging with Ephil in any activity due to his alleged sickness, except for one time when they went to a local bar together; Bacia's daughter, Adelaide, that he thought was his only friend; the winter vacation to Romania, where he got hit by an ice ball in a snowball fight, leaving him unconscious. After the snowball fight accident, he remembers that he woke up next to a Samantha that was aiding him, and that Samantha left him to join Johannes's dinner - at which he wasn't invited-, event which left him longing for a connection with her, as he never got another chance to talk to her. "... because in this family, anything that goes away, stays away." In the latter half of the book, he meets Johannes's older daughter, at a fancy student housing in Brussels, where he'd been placed by Johannes himself. He also remembers vague memories of his mother visiting him there, at this time. He presents his attachment to Jan's daughter (Peach), and some of his meetings with Jan. His memories then grow more and more dramatic. Around tenth or eleventh grade, when his mother Olivia presumably died, he developed an obsessive attachment to one of his classmates, Ursula, because at this time, the love he consumed for Samantha was being cultivated via her (the trigger of this affection being a brief conversation where Ursula comforted him). It took three comforting female figures to suppress the death of his mother. This lead him into an obsessive search for preserving a connection with Ursula, who realized that Ephil was troubled and tried to stay away. His obsession of Ursula persisted, regardless of her relationships with both of Ephil's high school friends, Liam and Mihail (as long as there was a relationship with his friends, there was a relationship with him), because his illusion of comfort was dependent on the female-figure triad. After he realized that Ursula couldn't "comfort" him anymore (realization triggered by her presumed sexual encounter with Liam, which she didn't deny when questioned), the death of his mother, once suppressed by a pathological comfort, now started unraveling. Samantha began appearing to him and calling him by the name "Christopher" (reference to the "Christ figure" - self-sacrifice, redemption - development that Ephil has yet to undergo). His lack of sleep thinned the barrier between his conscious self and his suppressed, unconscious self. His nightmares and guilt, that grew more intensely by the day, lead him into a humiliating episode of crying in the classroom, for no apparent reason, other than that he "wanted nobody to touch his Samantha". For a brief moment, two of his connections with the "feminine" broke. Samantha was slowly fading away. In this time, Samantha appeared to his apartment and invited him to join her at poker. This is when she called him by the name of "Chris/Christopher" for a total of 5 times. The poker nights were hosted by Karina. As Samantha faded away from him, she helped Ephil realize that Karina was whom he loved, and that Karina was the only one who comforted him this entire time. But in doing so, Samantha - the feminine figure - collapsed into Ephil's psyche, and appeared to "die" in a dramatic scene where a metaphorical window glass broke in front of the metaphorical couple ("Christopher and Samantha"). "I'm not myself, Samantha. I'm not Samantha." At the end of the book he finds himself in the same room, at night, with Karina, who observes his lack of sleep and suggests that Ephil really shouldn't drink much coffee anymore. His reply is the manifestation of a more balanced personality structure: "Starting tomorrow, I'll only drink tea. You'll see!"